The matchbox collection
Chapter 1. The Early Days
He had a collection of insects in matchboxes he kept hidden under a loose board in the old shed in the garden. He would take them out everyday and let them walk around before carefully replacing them into their caskets and again storing them in their hidden gaols.
Beetles, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, a few among many creepy crawlies housed in swan vesper and other branded match boxes. He liked the coachman beetles best, two together in the same jam jar and they would fight. poised like a praying mantis akin to matadors waiting to strike and deliver the killing blow, he also watched and waited until………”Son, son where are you come in here now, I said now” it was her again ranting on, oh well he had to go”. Carefully storing the boxes he went head bowed into the kitchen,
“Where have you been hiding, I been looking everywhere for you”, the hit when it came was brutal, expected yet always a surprise, smack, the stinging burning instant blush of redness flushed up across his face. He held his face where the hand had connected holding back the tears. the burning cheek exploding inside his head. “Yes mum” he said tearfully, ” I am sorry”, he knew not to argue just to take the blows and do as told……”get in there and wash your hands for tea, be gone now will yer”…..off he went to wash his hands for tea…bread with beef dripping no doubt, some salt to sweeten the taste and the usual burnt charred potatoes with some gravy of sorts. He often wondered how he could be missed just enclosed in a small garden without a place to hide save a shed……but had long learnt not to state the obvious.
On returning again to the tea-table he pulled up a chair and started on the evenings supper. The normal mashed potatoes with black and brown bits interspersed. he wondered if all potatoes people ate were meant to taste like this.
Some watery cabbage cut thick and square, white sauce filled with aromatic parsley, and a small white piece of fish, complete with bones……it was friday and what else would a good catholic household eat other than fish.
A red cup of water was in front of him, the cup without handle, chipped and cracked….the faded plastic blue gingham cloth covered the Formica table…….this was placed strategically in the middle of the kitchen just leaving enough room for people to squeeze around……..He wondered why it was not put it in the other empty room…but he never asked. The redness of the puffy cheek subsiding along with the stinging pain was a reminder of when NOT to speak. His mother always appeared angry with him and he never knew why or what he had done to provoke such a reaction.
He ate the fish pulling out the transparent bones with each mouthful, placing them in neat rows like soldiers on the side of his plate. His mind drifted off to his insects, the warriors, waiting in the darkness to fight, to battle their way to survival in the hope of escape.
